For the first time in months, I bungled this weekend and did not muster enough attitude go get off of my bum and go into the office to do posts over the weekend. This is bad. I’ve made a pact with myself to post every day. If I’m going to do this, I need to do it right. Anyway, I’m cheating slightly on Monday morning by doing three posts and back dating them so my calendar isn’t messed up. Most people won’t notice, because I’d be shocked if anybody actually checked this site every day – I’d be worried about mental health issues or saying, “Get a life!”

Nevertheless, Saturday was a huge success photographically, aside from the happy fact that there were thirteen people on the boat! Faded Glory was groaning under the weight of the party, which went on all afternoon.

The new Canon G10 was performing miraculously. I can’t believe how good this camera is. I’m getting shots that were not possible before. I’ll show you a few today and some more “tomorrow” when I fake Sunday’s post.

I’m soothed wonderfully by the subtle colours in this image which shows the polyps of the coral Anthelia glauca:

The next one is a Clark’s Anemonefish (Amphiprion calrkii) in front of a Bulb Anemone (Entacmaea quadricolor):

I’m getting textures and colours from the new camera that it’s predecessor could not capture. The improvement between the G9 and the G10 is amazing.

Here is another shot of Clark’s Anemonefish. I got a very good one last week, but this one is even better. If you click to enlarge, you can actually see the lateral line, which, on this fish, is not normally visible even with the naked eye, let alone through a camera lens. I’m so pleased that I want to dance:
Actually, it doesn’t take much to get me dancing anyway. Here is another shot of a Bulb Anemone at the Eel Garden near Pig Island where we did our dives on Saturday. This one just blows me away:

I don’t know what it takes to make you giggle, but for me, this does it. I’ve been dreaming of shots like this for years – planning them out in my head – how I would do them, what the lighting needed to be. The shot above used available light at 25 metres on an overcast day with murky water above. I don’t know what more you can ask of a camera.

This is a shot of an uncommon anemone – at least I think it’s an anemone. It is also a very stingy, sticky one. You do not want to brush against these:
Each one is about 50mm in diameter. I’m going to have to do some checking on this one. It may not be an anemone at all. It would be unusual to find a group of the placed so regularly. It may be a kind of coral with huge polyps. Next time I go to the Eel Garden, I’ll have to disturb it a little to see what is underneath.

A Pretty Ordinary Saturday Some days are better than others. Saturday we went to Leper Island. Yes, it was once a leper colony. We’ve gone to the south end inside the reef a few times before and had good luck. This time it was not a great dive. We went to an area that...

More Canon G10 Underwater Goodness The great underwater hunt continues with the trusty Canon G10 at my side. How beautiful can something called a tube worm be? Find out here....

Saturday Diving – A Row of Boats One of the larger specimens bit viciously three times. It grabbed a bit of my skin in its jaws and shook its body furiously before letting go....

An Impossibly Brilliant Anemone Saturday morning we made the arduous twenty minute journey out to Planet Rock in Astrolabe Bay. I shouldn’t moan about the travel time. Most of our dives are within ten minutes of my house. On the Southwest corner at about 23 metres is a large Bulb Anemone (Entacmaea quadricolor). I...

Photgraphing the Photographer Lt. Colonel Simon Watts knows his way around a camera. I seldom get shots of myself, as I'm to busy shooting other people. This one made me quite happy....

Underwater Variety Pack I spent the day wrestling a herd of piggish computers in the mud-hole of DHCP and DNS problems. It’s fixed now, but I feel all stinky from the smell of fear (you IT guys know what I’m talking about – when nobody at the office smiles at you UNTIL YOU...

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 4th, 2009 at 1:32 pm and is filed under Under the Sea.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.